Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. Every crazy, weird and wacky quote is straight from the pens of Armstrongite leaders or members who think they possess some insight into God and the Bible. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Bitter Bob Weighs In On What Causes Atheists

According to Bitter Bob Thiel of the improperly named Continuing Church of God, here are some of the reasons atheists exist. According to Bitter Bob the mere fact that they exist proves they are fools.

I just love it when self-righteous smug Armstrongites claim to know what goes on in the hearts and minds of people around them while they themselves are most corrupt and abusive.

Did you know the main reason evolution came about in the late 19th century was because people wanted to breed like rabbits?

Now, actually one of the reasons that there are evolutionary atheists
is, believe it or not, in the 19th century various male “intellectual”
were looking for excuses to not have to abide by biblical standards of
sexual morality. And back then, some of them even admitted that is why
they embraced the concept that life randomly evolved without a creator
God.

Then Bitter Bob has to take a swipe at evangelicals. It seems, according to him, they are a bunch of oversexed bed hopping swingers that cant stop having sex. What he describes is a LOT of Armstrongites that I have seen over the years! Bitter Bob has no room to cast that allegation considering many in the COG are sexually active before they got/get married. Hypocrisy over sex in Armstrongism is rampant!

I would also add hypocrisy to the list. The fact that evangelicals,
for one example, are more likely to be involved with fornication than
the general public, despite biblical admonitions against it, turns
people off.

War is another factor. Many non-believers point to religions such as
Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism as major causes of war, which
turns many people off to the idea that there is a truly loving God. But
of course, all scholars realize that early Christians would not
participate in carnal warfare. And in my opinion, this is still true of
faithful Christians today...

Armstrongites would readily sit back as they see their neighbors taken off to concentration camps or put in prison because of their beliefs. They would have sat back when the Germans came for the Jews, gypsies, gays and Jehovah's Witnesses. They sit back and let others fight and die for their right to be assholes to the rest of humanity.

Bitter Bob next takes a swipe at Bart Ehrman. His childish simplistic "explanation" on what Ehrman supposed believes regarding Christianity. Bitter Bob has complete disgust for Christan outside of Armstrongism so he has to take a swipe that Protestantism is what turned Ehrman off to God.

There are also scholars, for example, like Bart Ehrman, who started
out as Protestant but when they learned more about church history,
realized that Protestantism simply did not fit with church history or
much of the Bible.
And while he may be more of an agnostic than an atheist, the fact that
most of what is considered by the world to be Christianity, is not
Christianity, and this turns many off of religion (though it does not
necessarily make them atheists).

Bitter Bob now weighs on on how illogical he thinks atheism is. I don't know why he is so concerned on how others perceive a "personal" God, since Armstrongism completely ignores Jesus and anything he said or did. Its all logical to Bitter Bob. He knows all the answers.

But I would like to add that it is illogical to be an atheist. While
there may be many reasons that people may doubt the existence of a
personal God, such as the one that the Bible teaches about, the reality
is that any that conclude that there cannot be a creator/god are being
foolish:

1 The fool has said in his heart,”There is no God.” (Psalms 14:1, NKJV)

One of the reasons that it is foolish to conclude that there is no
God is because humans should realize that we are finite beings. No human
has been to ever place in the universe, no human has lived forever, no
human has been to every possible dimension that may exist in the
universe. Since no human has done that, for any human to conclude that
there cannot be a god or any type is illogical.

Why? Because no human
has enough possible proof that God cannot exist. Doing so with limited
“evidence” is foolish.

Furthermore, if the laws of bioscience are accepted as valid, one can
easily prove that something outside of those laws (God) was necessary
for life to begin and to continue. Amino acids simply did not randomly
line up, become alive, realize that it had to eat, realize that it had
to have a means to eat, immediately have a way to utilize food (like a
properly developed digestive system), realize it had to reproduce for
survival of life, and have the means to do so. It is illogical to
conclude otherwise.

But, despite the fact that some claim to be atheists, God’s existence is logical.

16 comments:

Ah, how to even begin addressing the errors and misconceptions of one man! It would be one thing to believe all of these things and to keep them to one's self, but he is actually proud of it all, is puffed up with it, and insists on not only teaching it, but using it as his standards with which to judge all others.

Dude, your religion is shit! There is no way a sentient being could hold your beliefs and maintain any level of spirituality or functionality, to say nothing of relationships. You should take up guitar like Eric King!

Critics often project onto their enemies the very fears/traits they find in themselves but refuse to acknowledge consciously.

Improperly Bitter Bob has probably already reasoned his way into atheism, but refuses to admit it to his conscious mind as this would mean his life-long ACOG excursion has made his life mostly a waste, and would mean he is just another slab of meat or blob of protoplasm no more special than any other.

Bitter Bob is hardly one to wax eloquent on atheists, or what's logical or rational, since he's never been been any of those.

Armstrongites like Bitter Bob may have different reasons for holding each and every group of people they don't belong to in utter contempt, but they've got at least one reason for every conceivable group.

Anyone who spends more than about five seconds considering the points Thiel makes, or his conclusions, is going to realize how baseless they are.

If, for example, the intellectuals who first articulated a case for atheism linked their non belief with a free love agenda, Theil should be able to produce multiple quotes supporting this. Typical intellectuals obtain their stimulation from doing research, and preparing dissertations. An active sex life is generally not a primary motivator in an intellectual's life.

Also, if evangelicals truly enjoyed a higher level of sexual activity than the general public, where are the surveys and statistics supporting this? If it were true, people would be flocking to the evangelical churches to either join or fake joining them. This type of Christianity would be experiencing explosive growth!

This stuff comes from one place. Thiel is simply appropriating anything which he feels might sound good if used to support his version of Armstrongist positions. I don't agree with 100% of Bart Ehrmann's conclusions, either. But, at least Ehrmann is carefully considering some sort of evidentiary trail, and remains open enough to modify his conclusions where that trail indicates that change is appropriate.

Now according to one claim by atheists from the post WCG era (one which was later refuted by saying no one could know), the final result (fruit) of Armstrongism was 40,000 atheists (or at least agnostics and quite a few deists thrown in).

It would be more reasonable (statistically speaking) -- even with somewhat less than completely trustworthy sources (which is less than Thiel has) -- that Herbert Armstrong was the greatest cause of atheism for the post WCG era.

My atheism didn't come from disappointment in WCG. It came from careful research and thought over a period of decades. He is simplistic minded and seeks pat answers he thinks will appeal to people. I guess they do. At least he has a few who follow him.

Well, we didn't create ourselves! Just that fact should put an end,(I would think) to anyone not believing in a Creator.

Of course there are some out there (such as my oldest sister), whom you'd think by knowing her she IS God and she DID create HERSELF. After all when she decides to come down from her HOLY MOUNTAIN, generally once a year, maybe, she seems to be ALL KNOWING and ALL SEEING! She knows everything and anything there is to know about everyone in our family...How can that beeeeeee??

I have on the Painful Truth's main page, a statement that reflects HWA's ministry and the results thereof...

"Armstrong was a man utterly without honor, without principles, without a shred of genuine decency or patriotism. He was the ultimate exterminator of religious life for thousands, and the grand compelling creator of a vast army of atheists."

Just because "the fool" might believe there is no god doesn't mean he's not right and it doesn't mean that all non-believers are fools. Just because a theist calls an unbeliever "the fool" doesn't mean he's not wrong either, it's just exactly what you would expect a theist to say.

Bitter Bob should read some of Bart Ehrman's books because Bart Ehrman has more knowledge on all things biblical than Bitter Bob can ever hope to have. But, he won't read them because he already knows it all and that makes him unteachable.

The fool believes there are no gods, is he really a fool? Well, could be, but he's not the one paying tithes and giving his living to charlatans.

Well, we didn't create ourselves! Just that fact should put an end,(I would think) to anyone not believing in a Creator.

Well, we certainly didn't create ourselves but we evolved from a common ancestor of the ape family. Man has created the Creator (notice the upper case) because the formation and death of stars has been observed. So, we know a Creator didn't do it.

Well, we didn't create ourselves! Just that fact should put an end,(I would think) to anyone not believing in a Creator.

Well, we certainly didn't create ourselves but we evolved from a common ancestor of the ape family. Man has created the Creator (notice the upper case) because the formation and death of stars has been observed. So, we know a Creator didn't do it.

May 25, 2014 at 10:28 AM

I prefer facts to fallacies...

Genesis 1:27 King James Version...

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:24-25King James Version...

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind.

But then this gets back to belief or non belief in a Creator. You cannot believe even in evolution without a Creator.

"One of the reasons that it is foolish to conclude that there is no God is ... blah blah blah ... is illogical. Why? Because no human has enough possible proof that God cannot exist. Doing so with limited 'evidence' is foolish ... blah blah blah ... It is illogical to conclude otherwise. But, despite the fact that some claim to be atheists, God’s existence is logical."

A) Bob is tilting at windmills again. He still hasn't figured out what it means to be an atheist. It just means to be an unbeliever. You can be an atheist and not have drawn any conclusions at all. For a supposed "expert" he really ought to consider getting a clue sometime. For someone with a diploma-mill terminal degree, he comes off as kinda undereducated...

B) Possible positions on the existence of god on a Likert scale: 1) I'm certain there's a god, I know what his name is, and I don't need evidence because he witnesses to me in my heart. 2) Yeah, I feel it's more likely there is a god than not. I don't know who he is, but I'm open to it. 3) Hmm. I'm not sure. I feel it could tip either way. 4) Meh. It feels unlikely. 5) I'm certain there is no god.

Only 2), 3), and 4) are honest positions. Positions 1) and 5) involve pretending to know things you cannot possibly know. Only idiots subscribe to those two. I know because I used to be one.

You wrote, "Of course there are some out there (such as my oldest sister), whom you'd think by knowing her she IS God and she DID create HERSELF. After all when she decides to come down from her HOLY MOUNTAIN, generally once a year, maybe, she seems to be ALL KNOWING and ALL SEEING! She knows everything and anything there is to know about everyone in our family...How can that beeeeeee?? Funny thing...she couldn't spell Jagadish, my mother's doctor's name...hahahaha!"

Evidently, the two of you don't agree on spiritual issues.I'd tend to think she is more than "Maybelle the Donkey"What do you think happened to her?Did she get brainwashed by some sleazy megachurch preacher, or the latest incarnation of EST, Amway, or Mary Kay, or something like that?

Whatever it is, I hope she returns to normalcy as soon as possible.

Regards,BubbulaPS: I think that her difficulty remembering how to spell the name "Jagadish" is a minor-to-nonexistant issue.